I have to call this "sort of" a pattern, because I do not literally use or write knitting patterns. I draw schematics and go from there. But to my ADHD mind, this is much easier than trying to read those laborious k2p2 lists of directions in 8 pt. type. SCREAM! I hate those. Also, cut me some slack here. It is free, after all.

The dj tunic is knit in one straight piece. Straight garter stitch. No increases or decreases. You will need to cast off for the neck and use a couple of stitch holders, then cast back on when the back of the neck resumes. If you can visualize that and if you can get comfortable with my penchant for stream-of-consciousness non-directions, you can do this.

I made a large tunic, not because I am overweight, but because I am temporarily not svelte so just deal with it, sister. So whereas everything I write is for a large size, if your own hips are slimmer or larger than size 14, then please adjust accordingly. And if they are smaller, btw, I hate your guts. There. It had to be said.


Please select a yarn that is dk gauge or smaller. I have some here. You want a nice, soft drape to the garment, so that the drop shoulders will flutter off into cap sleeves, perhaps revealing one strap of your tasteful camisole worn underneath. Length falls to low hip on me. Size large requires roughly 1100 yards.

Do a swatch of the yarn of your choice on the needles of your choice and figure out your stitches per inch.

Let's say you have chosen a yarn and needle combination that gives you 5 st per inch. My size large tunic has a 50-inch hip measurement, which is a generous, loose fit. But the front hem is only half of the circumference of the tunic, so you will cast on 25 inches worth of stitches. 25 inches x 5 st per inch = 125 st.

FRONT: If you would like a more finished edge that will not curl, cast on a number that is divisible by 4 and work in k2, p2 ribbing for half an inch. Then switch over to straight knit, all the way across, every row, which is what we call garter stitch. But if you don't feel like doing a ribbing, just use garter stitch throughout. When the piece is about 18 inches long--or roughly from crotch to armhole--divide the stitches by three. Use your judgment here. I'm short in height and I'm short-waisted. You may want the length shorter or longer, according to taste.

NECKLINE: You are dividing the stitches into thirds. Put one shoulder on a stitch holder. Cast off the center third to make room for your noggin. The other shoulder stays on your needles. Continue knitting it for five inches. When you finish with one shoulder, put that on a stitch holder and knit the other shoulder for five inches. When the shoulders appear even, it is time to join them by casting on the same number of stitches that you cast off five inches ago. I don't get too precise with these numbers when I work. If I divided the stitches into approximate thirds, then casting on about 1/3 will work fine. If anybody gets so close to me that he is staring at my neckline and counting the stitches, it's time to poke his eyes out. Ya know what I mean? Here is a turquoise work in progress that looks a bit squished, but it isn't. I had to scooch up the stitches to keep them on the needles for the photo.

BACK: Knit in garter stitch until the total piece measures 43 inches. Allow a little room for the k2, p2 ribbing at the end if you started with ribbing. If not, just knit your heart out to the very end.

The five-inch neck opening is off-center in this piece. I've got about 3.5 inches skewed to the front while 1.5 inches of the neck opening are skewed to the back. I did this so that the back of the tunic wouldn't be high up against the back of my neck. You don't have to do it this way. Heck, like I'm going to tell you what to do? I think not. You can have the neck centered between the front and back, closer to a tabard. Or you can have the neck opening entirely in the front. If you have a low neckline in the front, you will reveal more skin or more undergarment, so take that into consideration. I didn't design this to be worn alone. It has a low neckline and wide armholes on me.

When you are finished, try the tunic on with the side seams pinned together. Mark where armholes should go. The lower they are, the more slouchy and airy the tunic will be, but you will also be showing more of the shirt or whatever you plan to wear underneath. Then sew the side seams with matching yarn.

If you crochet, this would be a great variation in a loose, open crochet stitch. Make sure you use a soft, light, pliant yarn or you'll end up with a bulletproof vest.

Best wishes!

dj runnels

Since 2004, I have imported and sold handwoven Guatemalan goods on eBay--primarily tablecloths, place mats, table runners, napkins. Every time I unpack a new shipment, I am astonished once again by the skilled craftsmanship. The threads, the colors, the precision of the weaving process, the flat smoothness of the finished piece--all exceed my expectations of that which is handmade. It just doesn't seem humanly possible to create these weavings, let alone to create them under impoverished conditions, using primitive supplies, against a backdrop of political uncertainty and natural disasters.

Hurricane Stan was one of those natural disasters. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, as the United States tried to recover from the overwhelming destruction left in her wake, there were other hurricanes in other countries. Hurricane Stan was one of them. Few focused on this latter storm, yet it swept through middle America in October 2005 and annihilated entire villages, including the villages where "my" weavers lived.

Some of the weavers barely escaped with the clothes on their backs. Others were not that fortunate. Hurricane Stan brought horrific mudslides that entombed villagers within their very homes, leading government officials to declare some of these areas graveyards.

I cried when I heard this. In my Chicago suburb so far from that disaster, I held in my hands spectacular linens of a quality that I will never match, stunned by the intricate designs I will never master. I realized these linens were created in a backdrop of severe poverty, at a level I will never experience. And I read the tags that many of these linens bore: "Handmade by ____." In many cases, the weaver signed his or her first name on the tag.

The weaver's work reaches me through Fair Trade, an organization that ensures that its member artisans receive fair wages for their work. Without Fair Trade, wholesalers can gather up these goods for pennies and make enormous profits in resale. But weavers allied with Fair Trade make more income than they would make selling their cloth in local markets. I whole-heartedly support Fair Trade and feel this is the least I can do to help make up for the fact that I get to buy and resell these goods.

This week, I am acutely aware of these weavers, their wares, their lives, their deaths. That's because I took about 20 hand woven dinner napkins and painted designs on them. I wanted to move this merchandise off of eBay (where the seller's fees are very high) and list them on Zibbet. I am not allowed to do this unless I either (1) categorize them as craft supplies or (2) impart my handmade touch. I chose the latter. Using fabric paint and permanent ink, I sketched some cave paintings, primitive designs and trees. But I know my paint and ink, although heat set, will fade sooner than the vibrant color of the cloth. Even worse, my artistry pales (an unwanted pun) to that of the Maya.

I listed the napkins but thought at length about the original weavers. I thank them for what they contribute to our world. I honor my sisters and brothers who continue to weave for the comparatively rich Americans who will never know the depth of their sacrifices. I apologize for daring to doodle on their cloth, because I fear I may have diminished, rather than enhanced, its beauty. And I pray that the money I pay through Fair Trade is enriching their lives enough to justify what I do.

One of my designs is a tree. It's a dj runnels kind of tree. I have drawn similar trees for years, countless times, in notebooks and paintings. I've drawn these trees on driveways with sidewalk chalk, surrounded by my children. I've drawn trees without leaves so that my children could fill in the leaves. I've drawn trees with blank leaves that my children could decorate or color in. The dj runnels trees have a long history. These trees now grace some of these Guatemalan napkins and my thoughts ran in two directions as I drew them. One thought was, "Gee, I hope I'm not ruining this perfectly good napkin." And the other recurring thought was the phrase "tree of life."

By tree of life, I mean the sense of connection I have to the weavers of these napkins. We are connected, the weavers and I. But also you and I. And you and they. We are all connected along the branches of humanity. Our ancestors form the roots of our current existence. We live and die, nurture and decay, interconnected in lives that network across the globe. Woven blessings pass through my hands and into yours. Or in some cases, woven blessings pass from them to me and I scribble on them and THEN they go to you. I feel I owe Guatemala an apology for this. But on the other hand, I like that I am sharing their precious work with you, even if the middleman or middlewoman just had to put her two cents' worth in there.

Did I participate in the creative endeavor? Or did I desecrate it?

Or maybe, as my 8th grade algebra teacher so often urged me to do, I can reduce it to even simpler terms: Maybe it was wrong, but I enjoyed doing it, anyway.

dj runnels
Life's an Expedition

PROCEEDS GO TO HAITI (Red Cross) on this top-selling yarn. http://bit.ly/7SwlJy

Normally, I prefer to sell yarn on Artfire, but one feature eBay does offer is a bonafide, honest charity operation wherein I can donate proceeds from the sale of this yarn to the American Red Cross and know that the money actually WILL go to the Red Cross (I've participated in this program before) and that the Red Cross knows how to get that money to where it is needed and will do the most good, e.g.: to the survivors in Haiti.

Please consider purchasing this yarn. Italian Vineyard is one of my best. Sold exclusively by Life's an Expedition.  I've even marked it on sale in addition to donating 30% of the sale to the Red Cross. You win all the way around and you will be helping with disaster relief.

God bless you.

dj runnels

 

Left to right: Laines du Nord Haway blue, Sirdar Medici blue, Sirdar Medici pink, Laines du Nord Haway pink. Neck warmer also contains a Life's an Expedition yarn that is sold out.

 

I receive puzzled questions from knitters about yarn blending, so I thought I would start posting more of my project photos. Yarns do not literally have to match when you blend them. For example, the two blue yarns in this photo are not identical blues. And the pinks are not identical either. But when you hold two strands of yarn together as you knit or crochet, that sort of forces them to go together...

 

Well, within reason. Forest green and bright orange are always going to look like a sports team. But if you keep pastels with pastels, earth tones with earth tones, brights with brights, that will help you avoid some glaring color combinations. All yarns shown in these photos are available in our online yarn store. dj runnels

 

Below: Life's an Expedition peachtree with Sirdar Medici pink/peach

 

Below: Life's an Expedition Peachtree and Astilbe. Peachtree (left) is peach, lavender and ivory. Astilbe is plu, lavender and ivory.  When knitted together, they look as if they go together because they are 2/3 the same, with similar yarns and textures. 

Yet another customer wrote to me to say she had run out of such-and-such yarn. Did I have any of that color? She needs it for a project she is working on.

[banging my head against a wall]

WHY does it have to be that same color and same dye lot? Because she started with Famous Brand Boring Beige #11111 and by golly, she needs to finish with Famous Brand Boring Beige #11111 even though the results are going to be just as predictably boring as any of us can imagine.

I'm not trying to tell knitters or crocheters what to do. I know solid color knits have their place in this world...um, I guess.  But honestly, if you CONSIDER this piece of advice, you will never have this problem again.

• Look at your project and figure out how much yarn you need.

• Find three or four color-coordinated yarns in the gauge you think you will need--keeping in mind that you will have to test that gauge and/or use a different size needle.

• Buy 20% more yardage than you estimated.

Now, it just so happens that I sell yarn in harmonizing color families. I have a huge selection in my own home, so running out of yarn is inconceivable to me. But if you get a whole gaggle of color-related yarn, you can use whichever yarns you liked best, add a pocket later, change the collar, whatever, and likely still have some leftover. Save the leftovers for a hat or something.

Today, I am wearing a brown sweater that I knitted from a vast assortment of brown yarns that I sell. Many of them were close in color or from the same color family, but many were not. They were just brown. And I could gaze at this sweater all day. I am gazing at it now as my fingers slip off the keys and ,u tu[omg siffers as a resi;t/

Do you think it was hard to make this? My knitting skills are near nil. I never learned to do intarsia, cables, entrelac or any of that stuff. I just use straight garter stitch or stockinette or maybe if I'm in a really fancy mood, I will do a seed stitch. I knit while I watch TV and I scarcely look at what I am doing. And no one has sweaters that look like mine. Well, okay, in a few cases, that is probably a good thing, because I make mistakes while I work and often refuse to unravel, but still... I have the most creative sweaters in my neighborhood, I promise you. And I never, ever, ever run out of whatever yarn I was using, because I use a wild hodgepodge of ONE COLOR FAMILY and make sure I have extras.

If I did not have extras--this doesn't happen, but if it did--I wouldn't hesitate to shift to another yarn that sort of harmonizes and just repeat that yarn somewhere else on the project. What is wrong with having a sweater with slightly contrasting collar, cuffs, pockets? That is tame compared to some of my projects, where I make the sleeves different colors and the front and the back are different lengths. Or the hem deliberately slopes to the left.

You CAN get wild and funky, people. But if that is not your taste, that's okay. I know some people like classic, traditional clothing. But please, at least contemplate knitting outside the dull beige box. Please. You will never run out of yarn again, but more than that, it will be good for your soul!

If the sight of this motley assortment of brown yarns confuses you, please see my blog post on yarn blending.

dj runnels